New Info May Help You Decide To Pull Plug Or Not
Are you still confused about whether turning off your computer can hurt the performance of internal parts?
Some new information may or may not help you decide whether to leave the unit on -- or not. Recent tests found that computers with Pentium 4 processors running at 1.8 gigahertz drew 110 watts of electricity while booting up and 60 watts when they were on but idle. A 17-inch cathode-ray tube monitor added an additional 75 watts.
Newer, flat-screen LCD monitors use about half as much juice as CRTs.
PCs in power-saving standby or sleep mode use even less, about the equivalent to three clock radios. So your PC isn't a big juice hog. Dell, the world's leading seller of PCs, has no official position on whether customers should leave the machines running or not. A spokesman says leaving computers on all the time doesn't erode their performance, but it doesn't appear that turning them off and on does either, because the reliability of key parts has improved so much.
|